Laptop doesn't work after a trip. What should I do?

[Nootnootmofo]

First of all of the following comes off as awkward then it's likely because I'm on my smartphone and I can't use the keyboard to save my life.. Anyway...

I got a Lenovo G50 three years ago for under 300 because I desperately needed something for my schoolwork. It ended up serving me well and then I packed it up for winter break in its sleeve and case three days ago. I didn't drop it or anything, but...Well, it died?
The temperature in the car I don't think was too hot. I was wearing a sweater comfortably. I thought it was safe for the hour drive, but somehow it wasn't.

The next time I pulled it out and turned it on, the poor little bastard's screen was black. Though I could still hear the sound of it being on and see the battery+power light on, the lights on the caps key and numlock just didn't turn on. Each time I try holding in the power key to turn it off, it comes back on in a split second.
Hooking up an external display does nothing; the flickering screen that usually indicates when something's been plugged into the TV doesn't even happen.
Opening it up, nothing seems out of place. I put the memory back in and it did nothing. The fan doesn't operate but I'm unsure if this is normal or not.

I'm wondering how I should progress from here...Is it possible that my HDD is still safe? I'm not sure if I should buy a hdd enclosure and try retrieving my data that way. It's the most important thing to me.

As for actually fixing this thing, I'd love to try. Suggest ways for me to diagnose the problem or try fixing it and I'll try, but I think I may be unable to if it's a serious hardware problem...

 

[Saga Lout]

Bouncing around in the back of a car could have shaken the RAM stick or sticks loose. There is probably a hatch around two inches square on the base.

Unscrew it and remove the sticks and reseat them. Try powering up again before you replace the hatch - it might work with one or ther other.

 

[Nootnootmofo]

Hm, that's what I tried already. Is there any reason in particular you suspect the RAM? I could try fetching my old laptop and testing out the stick.

 

[Nootnootmofo]

*What I mean is if the collection of issues my laptop is experiencing is typical of RAM failure or not.

 

[Saga Lout]

It has more to do with it being the easiest thing to examine first. More screwdriver work is required to open the whole case.

 

[Nootnootmofo]

Alright. Is there anything else I should do, or do you think the laptop motherboard, GPU and/or processor is dead? I do want to get to the data retrieval process soon, but am just getting cold feet because I want to know what went wrong with my laptop first.

 

[Saga Lout]

Remove the hard disk before running any more experiments. You can connect that to another PC with a small USB cable unit and retrieve the data you want to keep.

It's worth trying the laptop without a hard disk just in case but the mystery to me is why it powers up at all and doing nothing further.